Investors in People

It always amuses me to see the Investors in People plaque on the side of the local crematorium.   I would have thought Disposers of People would be more appropriate.

Everyday Graphs, No 1: The Monday Morning Effect

Ever since I started observing variable stars at the age of 11, I have used rough, quickly-drawn graphs as a way of getting a feel for the behaviour and consistency of numerical data.   At the end of a long observing session I would often sit down beside the fire with a cup of cocoa and do quick free-hand sketches of the light-curves of the eclipsing binary stars that I had been following through the night.  This enabled me to see if anything unexpected had occurred and, if necessary, to plan follow-up observations on later nights. 

I now no longer observe variable stars (not since becoming a parent) but I occasionally come across data which leads me to plot a quick graph.  This happened earlier this summer when I received my daughter Zoe's school report.  I had got a vague feeling over the year that Zoe was occasionally feigning sickness, especially on Mondays.  But, as I normally have to leave for work before Zoe goes for her school bus, I have always given her the benefit of the doubt.  However, when I saw an attendance table in the back of her school report I  immediately totted up the absences for each day of the week and plotted the results in the above graph.  I was astounded:  Zoe's sickness rate varied almost linearly from 15% on Mondays down to 0% on Fridays.  I showed Zoe the graph and she too was quite surprised by it. 

The most likely cause of this Monday morning effect is that Zoe was staying up too late at night on the weekends.  The tiredness produced by this could persist through Tuesday and Wednesday to produce the observed linear decrease in 'sickness' throughout the week.  Another possibility, that Zoe had more lessons she didn't like early in the week, can be discounted because it would be very unlikely that her lessons were so arranged as to produce the linear decrease.  So, this year Zoe will be in bed by 10:30pm at weekends and getting up by 08:30am.  I have stuck the above graph on the fridge door to remind me (and Zoe) and am looking forward to her next school report so I can plot this year's attendance data and see if the new regime has had the desired effect.

Friday Afternoon Commute

On Fridays I often finish work at 1pm.  Normally I catch the fast train from Farnborough North direct back to Reading but yesterday, wanting to go to the barber's at Earley, I caught the train from Frimley to Ascot in order to connect with the Waterloo to Reading stopping train.

As we approached Ascot, I got up as usual and stood by the door to get a better view of the woodland on the inside of the curve into platform 3 and was rewarded by the sight of a largish deer hiding in the shade at the back of the wood and a fox curled up in the sun closer to the tracks.

Later on, at the barber's shop I felt too tired to read so I just gazed out of the windows while waiting my turn.  In a gap between two buildings, a red kite appeared, spiraling slowly on a up-draft.  I watched it do three full circles before it drifted off westward and out of my view.

'Tis the Season to be Arachnophobic

I always think of early September as the time of year that the spiders start coming down the windows in the evenings.  During the day they skulk in the corners of their webs but in the evening they move out onto their webs to await the flies and moths.  I am not sure whether the spiders are using that fact that insects are attracted by the lights in windows: there do not seem to be noticably more spiders outside our living-room, which is usually well-lit, when compared to our bedrooms which are relatively rarely lit.  However, I have seen lights in an underpass downtown that were completely covered by a mass of webs, studded with the bodies of snared insects as if the spiders were catching far more food than they could deal with.  There the lights were fluorescent and were left on all night.

Deer

Yesterday afternoon, the path between Frimley and Farnborough North I came across two small long-eared deer.  With the lake immediately to the left of the path and the river close to the right, they could have been trapped if someone had been coming the opposite way.  In an attempt to drive them to where the lake was replaced by dense woodland, I clapped my hands several times but, instead of moving onwards, they chose to dive into some bushes between the path and the lake.  They were still rather close to the path but, even though I knew they were in the bush, I was unable to see them, so I went on my way happy that I had done my bit.